Weighing and labeling conveyors, referred to as price labelers, for labeling articles comprise a weighing belt for determining a weight value of an article, one or more transport apparatuses, designed as conveyor belts, for transporting an article, a labeler comprising a printer for printing a label with information, in particular at least one item of information related to the weight value of the article, and comprising an applicator for applying the label to the corresponding article. The articles to be labeled are in particular food in trays, food packaged in plastics film, food packaged in boxes or cartons, or any products that are transported on the weighing and labeling conveyor in plastics, paper or cardboard packaging.
The throughput of articles through the weighing and labeling conveyor is often limited by the printing speed, i.e. by the time the printer requires in order to print a corresponding label for an article. For this reason, weighing and labeling conveyors that are intended to achieve a high throughput comprise two labelers and therefore two printers, the labelers each alternately printing and applying a label for articles in the stream of articles on the transport apparatus, such that, for example, the first labeler in the article sequence labels all the odd articles, and the second labeler in the article sequence labels all the even articles. In this case, both labelers apply their labels at the same point on the articles, for example on the top or on the bottom of the packaging.
The weighing and labeling conveyor is integrated in a production system. If a fault occurs in the weighing and labeling conveyor, for example because the label roll in the printer is empty and needs to be changed, the entire production system is therefore at a standstill until the label roll is changed by an operator, and thus until the fault in the printer is rectified.